Release 0.5.6 Beta: Alfred Five Weeks On

It's now just over a month since we first launched Alfred. The first thing we'd like to say is a huge thank you to the +13,000 people who have downloaded Alfred, tested it, reviewed it, commented about it on Twitter or otherwise helped spread the word.

Today, we are releasing version 0.5.6 beta, the fourth public release to date. It's full of new features and improvements, as the lengthy change log shows since 0.5 two weeks ago.

A few highlights:

• Performance: Pre-caching of apps & significant speed improvements
• Basic update checker which pops up "Update available" message
• Improved local search scope preferences
• Improved relevancy and accuracy of results (This is just the start, there's still a lot to do here)
• Bit.ly shortcut creation (using "bitly" keyword)
• UI design tweaks
• Added new countries to locales
• Advanced calculator (using '=', still experimental)

The full change log is available here for the curious ones.

Email signup no longer required

When we first launched Alfred, we didn't include a way to check for updates. For that reason, we required users to sign up with an email address so that we could email everyone with updates. As a result of adding an automatic update checker, we're able to make email sign up optional.

We'll be sharing news and tips on Twitter and via our newsletter, so be sure to sign up if you want to stay in touch.

What's Next?

In the next release, we'll be focusing on further improving relevancy of searches as well as adding/improving web searches. We have dozens of tickets lined up, taking into account nearly all of the feedback we've received from users in the past few weeks.

We'll be slowing the pace down ever so slightly as we've been spending every spare hour on Alfred recently and need to catch our breath before tackling the next release.

In summary, we've loved every moment of developing Alfred and these past few weeks have reinforced our plans to continue developing great Mac software for the years to come.

Get the latest version on http://alfredapp.com, have a play and let us know on Twitter how you're finding it!